Wells Fargo Fails to Shake $38 Million Judgment Over Stock Sale

Occidental Petroleum convinced the Fifth Circuit to uphold a $38 million judgment against Wells Fargo & Co. over the bank’s failure to sell stocks from an Occidental trust before they suffered Covid-linked declines.

“‘Through a series of clumsy missteps,’ Wells Fargo ‘simply failed’ to execute the plan,” the US Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit majority said in a divided ruling Wednesday. “The undisputed record supports the district court’s conclusion that ‘Wells Fargo failed to implement what it agreed to do to prudently manage the Trust.”

Occidental and Wells Fargo agreed in 2019 that the bank would sell off ...